Both professional and household vacuum cleaners are known which have a removable dust collecting container. With these known vacuum cleaners, the seal between the dust collecting container and the filter or the other housing parts cooperating therewith is effected by utilizing a sealing element which is located between the individual stacked sequentially arranged structural elements. Since the vacuum cleaners can have considerable dimensions, and accordingly the cross sections to be sealed off with respect to each other are correspondingly large, the surfaces stacked one upon the other or engaging each other must be produced and finished with a corresponding accuracy expenditure in order to avoid having the surfaces, which are to be sealed with respect to each other, provided with any divergences in size or divergences which are too great in departing from the planar parallel relationship of the surfaces to be sealed with respect to each other, so that lack of a tight seal can be avoided.
Special holding and clamping elements are necessary for pressing together the parts to be sealed with respect to each other in connection with a soft elastic sealing element located therebetween and for attaining the necessary sealing effect.